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\ i State of Indiana
EPA Brownfields Initiative

EPA's Brownfields Program empowers states,
communities, and other stakeholders to work together to
prevent, assess, safely clean up, and sustainably reuse
brownfields. A brownfield site is real property, the
expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be
complicated by the presence or potential presence of a
hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant. On
January 11, 2002, President George W. Bush signed into
law the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields
Revitalization Act. Under the Brownfields Law, EPA
provides financial assistance to eligible applicants
through four competitive grant programs: assessment
grants, revolving loan fund grants, cleanup grants, and
job training grants. Additionally, funding support is
provided to state and tribal response programs through a
separate mechanism.

Background

EPA Region 5 selected the Indiana Department of
Environmental Management (IDEM) for a Regional
Brownfields Pilot to support environmental assessments
at approximately twelve brownfields in Indianapolis and
the northwest Indiana communities of Gary, Hammond,
and East Chicago. In addition, EPA has granted IDEM
the use of a mobile lab to facilitate testing at the sites.

Pilot Fact Sheet

Pilot Snapshot

Date of Announcement: 09/01/1995
Amount: $150,000

Profile: The Pilot targets approximately twelve
brownfields in Indianapolis and the northwest Indiana
communities of Gary, Hammond, and East Chicago.

Contacts

For further information, including specific grant
contacts, additional grant information, brownfields
news and events, and publications and links, visit the
EPA Brownfields Web site
(http ://www .epa.gov/brownfields).

EPA Region 5 Brownfields Team
(312)886-7576

EPA Region 5 Brownfields Web site
(http://www.epa.gov/R5Brownfields)

Grant Recipient: Indiana Department of
Environmental Management

U.S. EPA - Region 5
(312)886-3009

Indiana Department of Environmental Management
(317) 308-3048

Objectives

IDEM's objective is to facilitate the reintroduction of
approximately ten brownfields into the real estate
market. Currently, the potential environmental liability
at these sites is unquantified and prospective purchasers
are unwilling to take the risk of accruing undetermined
future cleanup costs. The cost of conducting a private
environmental assessment is prohibitively high, so these
sites remain unused.

IDEM anticipates that, once these sites have been
assessed, the increased amount of information regarding
the sites will enable prospective purchasers to quantify
their potential liability accurately and encourage them to
consider purchasing these sites for commercial use.

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Activities

The Pilot has:

•	Created a Brownfields Environmental
Assessment Application to assist communities in
the selection of their brownfields sites;

•	Completed inventory of brownfields sites with
redevelopment potential in the four cities and
selected several priority sites for assessment;

•	Commenced assessment on 12 sites using a
mobile lab from EPA, and finished final reports
on six of them. Most of the sites are about ten
acres in size and were previously used for heavy
industry;

•	Designed and conducted (in conjunction with the
Indiana Department of Commerce) brownfields
workshops for a range of stakeholder groups;

•	Developed educational brownfields material,
including a newsletter; and

•	Conducted several other outreach activities
including several presentations to stakeholder
groups and municipalities.

Experience with the State of Indiana Pilot has been a
catalyst for related activities including the following.

•	Three of the sites that were assessed under the
Pilot are pending cleanup and redevelopment.

•	IDEM anticipates that because the
redevelopment of these sites is of substantial
economic importance, City and State officials
will be involved in facilitating any prospective
purchases or redevelopment and will convey the
assessment information to the prospective
purchasers. To date, several of the sites have
gone forward with redevelopment work.

•	IDEM offered to conduct "no cost" brownfields
environmental assessments to municipalities
throughout the State.

•	IDEM, in conjunction with other Indiana
brownfields pilot programs, developed a tool kit
designed for developers. The tool kit provides
information on the brownfields program, how to
participate, and the legal and technical issues
associated with redeveloping properties.

•	IDEM is using experiences from the Pilot to
inform its proposals for State brownfields
legislation.

The information presented in this fact sheet comes from
the grant proposal; EPA cannot attest to the accuracy of
this information. The cooperative agreement for the

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grant has not yet been negotiated. Therefore, activities
described in this fact sheet are subject to change.

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